Wait! Just Go

Someone told me once

That butterflies in the stomach

Aren’t all as they seem

Because it is so much like anxiety

And maybe

We should take them as a warning

/

But I just want to feel

Anything, really

Something with an increased heart rate

Like sprinklers in the summertime

When you’re for a walk and it gets late

Or when a first date ends just right

And everything is perfect

Absolute butterflies

Anxiety, anything

I want to feel the action

I want to know such attraction

I want to fall in love

Even if it is a means to an end

A heartbreak

An infidelity

I soak it all in

I let it grow untamed

And I remain unsettled

For love and all its games

Can play me whenever

The heart shall ask for its desires

And life will deliver

So I must graciously receive

And also be the giver

/

I remember the first time I saw you

For some peculiar reason

Unbeknownst to me then

But that fateful day

You came to me

Left a lasting impression

I think of it now after some time

I look back and so do wish

I never looked into your eyes

From across the room

In between booths

Imagine being in my shoes

Why couldn’t I see it?

/

I had no idea who I was

The perception of my self

Reflected in the opinion of everyone else

I was unwell

Entangled in things still unknown

Fate to behold

And when I saw you

It was like the world became undone

I should have run

Instead I stared back into my own future

Having no idea

We’d be here

Ten years later

/

I’m almost sad to think

That a moment so delicate

And something so lovely

So once in a lifetiming

To be hit by the freight train

Was shared with my own reckoning

An absolute disaster

Even if it was natural in its course

I wish I would have looked away

The opposite way of you

Into some other direction

One where I’m going places by now

And without a way to catch up

Just to be another distraction

/

But I am brave

And stared back

I looked love in the face

As I gasped

The clocks stopped

Locked into your face

Bearing an empty soul

Offering little more than body

Because I was more interested

In learning karate

If it is all chalked up to lessons

Consider me a teacher

Because when it comes to love

Only those who listen

Can become the speaker

/

So I wanted a fairytale

Like the one you had with her

Something less macabre

Than my mind was used to

It was then I should have seen

That ship had long since sailed

The moment I caught your anger

Not in the traditional sense

Like vocalizing

Nor in the offbeat swings

But in the way you acted

And the way you treated me

You’d think now I’d have the strength

To resist wondering

/

But now I am curious

If maybe it was about our age

Or maybe it was something about the place

Can you blame time in this?

In matters of the heart, nothing is clear

But I was brave

And heartbreak

Ain’t nothing to fear

/

I’d say I even like it

Because often when I’m happy

I still want to destroy

Everything I built

Like lovers are but toys

I don’t mind the struggle

Of a broken heart

Cuz if love can’t knock me down

Like a moment in a crowd

Then why is that what I’d want?